When US News reports the median private sector salary, (for example $60,000) is that only for graduates who have recently graduated (within the past 9 months) or all of the graduates they were able to get a hold of?

Susan_Walid wrote:When US News reports the median private sector salary, (for example $60,000) is that only for graduates who have recently graduated (within the past 9 months) or all of the graduates they were able to get a hold of?

Alum that are employed full time only and chose to report their salary (both as of 9 months after graduating). Don't trust a school/school's info that doesn't specify the response rate.

AntipodeanPhil wrote:It is for the class of 2011 only. Also, keep in mind that schools have a variety of clever ways of manipulating salary data.

Class of 2010 only. It's a shame that people are forced to make decisions on which law school to attend on salary data for classes that graduated 5 years before they do (re: the new rankings have the class of 2010 data, and the class of 2015 would be entering law school in the fall).

Gail wrote:I'm wondering how accurate OCS employment data given to NALP is also? Obvious USNews is a joke. I thought that NALP was more reliable though.

You mean the data available on the NALP Directory on which firms turn up to each school's OCI?

Various 2Ls and 3Ls on the employment forum have claimed that some of the firms listed on the NALP Directory as turning up at their OCIs haven't done so for at least a few years, so that information is probably a little out of date, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Gail wrote:I'm wondering how accurate OCS employment data given to NALP is also? Obvious USNews is a joke. I thought that NALP was more reliable though.

You mean the data available on the NALP Directory on which firms turn up to each school's OCI?

Various 2Ls and 3Ls on the employment forum have claimed that some of the firms listed on the NALP Directory as turning up at their OCIs haven't done so for at least a few years, so that information is probably a little out of date, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

I believe it is all just data that the schools provide to the NALP - nothing suggests the NALP does anything to verify or corroborate it. So, the question is: how much do you trust the schools?

We just had a big discussion on the 'Choosing a Law School' forum about the accuracy of the school-reported data for the top 6 schools. The short conclusion was that it seems that it is accurate - more accurate than any other source.

AntipodeanPhil wrote:I believe it is all just data that the schools provide to the NALP - nothing suggests the NALP does anything to verify or corroborate it. So, the question is: how much do you trust the schools?

While trusting whether the schools report data accurately is one question (and, with evidence, might be legitimate in some cases), another question, which I think is more probative, is whether the alumni are reporting their employment data accurately. Ultimately, it is up to the alumni to accurately report the data; also, look at the consequences for the schools vs. the alumni if data is misreported. Villanova is an example of what can happen to a school that decides to juice the numbers. If an alumnus reports his salary as $95K instead of $80K, how would (or could) the school find out? Importantly, the reported employment data is through voluntary disclosure of the alumni, so verification or corroboration can only go so far.

For those interested, the (very) detailed employment data reported to NALP from all law schools is compiled in their "Jobs & JD's" report, published every year. I believe it costs $66 (if you're a member) to purchase a copy: http://www.nalp.org/productdetail/?productID=145; your school also might have a copy you can look at.

I'm not sure if LST offers anything beyond what is in the "Jobs & JD's" report--please note, I'm assuming that the information from each school's NALP questionnaire is compiled (by school) within the report. If anyone has more info on this, please let me know.

EDIT: After a little investigation, it appears that the individual school reports are "confidential" (as described on LST), so this leads me to believe that they aren't broken down by school in the report; still, that leads me to question why the report costs $66 (or $91 for a non-member!).

Also, the ABA plans to "aggregate" the salary info from the NALP data:"As with the 2011 version of this Questionnaire, the job data is “unbundled” from the salary data. We do not propose reporting school specific salary data. Rather we will use NALP salary information which will be aggregated on a state-wide basis for each field (if available) on our Placement Data Summary."

USNWR indicates that they use the ABA data to report (interpret, really) their results for "job placement success."